Blogs of Interest

I spend way too much time on the Internet. But I find the most interesting blogs.

The Steampunk House. A while ago, I wrote about the Steampunk Aesthetic in this blog. Well, here's a whole blog dedicated to it.

DarkStyle. Most of my favorite Goth style sites--well, they've been inactive for some time now. But I found a new one! Great source for inspiration and DIY

Would you like a little Steam with your Punk?

What can I say? I love the Steampunk aesthetic. It takes my love of Victoriana and combines it with my love of technology. It definitely fulfills the Enchanted Life philosophy of transporting you to another time and place. If you don't know what Steampunk is, I suggest you check out Brass Goggles. It's a blog about all things Steampunk, including modded computers like this one.

Looking for more? You might want to check out some Steampunk inspired movies such as The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen or Steamboy. You may also find some inspiration the pages of graphic novels such as The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (which is better than the movie) or The Five Fists of Science.

Offbeat Bride

You may have noticed I always mention weddings in my list of things that can be done in the Enchanted Style. That's because I love weddings. My first job was salesgirl in a wedding & formal gown store. And besides, I can't think of anything more enchanting than two people who are truly in love promising to spend the rest of their lives together.

However, as I learned on my job and when I planned my first wedding, sometimes it becomes less about that and more about the "what you are supposed to do". Which isn't enchanting at all.

So, if you are a bride-to-be or a groom-to-be who's more about the "being married" part and have definite (or not so definite ideas) on the best way to celebrate that, may I suggest Offbeat Bride by Ariel Meadow Stallings. Best of all, it comes in three great flavors of book, blog, and community. The book is what started it all and if you can get your hands on it, it is a highly entertaining and comforting read for any married person-to-be. The blog is chock full of great ideas (or wedding porn!), advice, and advertisements for vendors who carter to brides and grooms who like to think outside the box. The community is full of all sorts of offbeat brides and grooms from a wide variety of other communities including geeks, gamers, goths, hippies, Wiccans, artists, enviromentalists, and well, just about anyone you can think of.

So whether you planning a magic fairy theme or chic cyberpunk theme or just want to make your traditional wedding more your own, I highly recommend trying out Offbeat Bride.

Inspiration Boards

Inspiration Boards are simply collection of graphics that have a related theme. They are great when planning a project. You can grab images of things that inspire that project or objects you might like to use in such project. Inspiration Boards are great for planning, whether its for a party, a wedding, a room, or even a house.

There are lots of ways to do an inspiration board. They easiest is probably to copy and paste pictures from the web (or scan or your own photos) into a program like Microsoft Word or Powerpoint. If you have graphics program, like Adobe Photoshop, you could use it as well.

Or, you could try Polyvore. This site has a little applet you can install that lets you clip images to it. You can then use those to create an inspiration board or you can draw from the thousands of pictures that have been clipped by others. It's easy and fun. The interface is pretty simple and lets you search pictures by keyword, category, or even color. My only complaint about it is that it doesn't seem to handle photographs very well. Still its lots of fun. Here are some boards I did:

Ideas for a forest themed living room.

Ideas for renaissance Midsummer's Night Dream Wedding

If you are interested in trying out Polyvore, I've even started a group there for those of us into the Enchanted Life.

A Cool Design Web Site

I love interior design. I watch all those home improvement shows on HGTV and TLC constantly. I've decorated my house in the enchanted style (and yes, there will be posts about it).

So, when I came across the DesignMyRoom site, I was in 7th heaven. It lets you design rooms using existing products. I may post some of my designs here when I get the chance.